Futuremark released 3DMark Vantage, on April 28, 2008. It is a benchmark based upon DirectX 10, and therefore will only run under Windows Vista (Service Pack 1 is stated as a requirement) and Windows 7. This is the first edition where the feature-restricted, free of charge version could not be used any number of times. 1280×1024 resolution was used with performance settings.
The enhanced clock speeds mean that this card scores around 400 points more than the reference clocked AMD version.
Well this is rather disappointing, especially after that sexy powercolor card you reviewed last week. I hadnt forgotten about it !
£20 for a 20mhz core increase and a bit of an OC on the memory? I can do that myself with CCC and spend that £20 on some drinks :p
Good cards, but I agree, this isn’t really hitting the spot for me, seems a bit cheeky really as its a complete reference design.
This is a nice card, all 6970s are nice ! powercolor card has me spoiled, that was awesome.
Fair score, I was thinking it might be a 7, but the hardware is that good that would be unfair. any higher than 8 is overly generous, as the powercolor one tested here last week is miles ahead and deserves the gold award.
Man, bad time for HIS to release this, after the powercolor PCS+, MSI HAWK, Sapphire Flex and the Asus GTX580 direct CU ! what awesome boards in the last week.
Yeah, dont really think this is such a good deal. id rather get a reference card for £20 less, and oc it myself.
I just bought a 6970 myself, picked it up for £260 and have overclocked it to 960mhz, faster than this HIS, and £40 less 🙂
yeah, im feeling smug, so what :p
Good review, thanks for the testing. ill give this one a miss and get their reference model, as our local store is selling it for £270 inc vat.
I dont mind HIS, good products with some of their range. This one however is a miss for me, because I dont think companies should get away with selling bios adjusted cards for £20 more. there is no extra work, and a ‘turbo’ sticker doesnt cost anything extra.
every HD6970 ever made hits 920mhz, so there is no hand selection going on here Zardon, that was a rather optimistic closing comment from you.
Waste of money, I can modified bioses myself and I dont have to pay £20 for the priveledge.
Good card, but its nothing out of the ordinary. Not sure they will sell many of these when there are alternatives offering better specifications and coolers etc.
very disappointing for a HIS release. Sad that they couldn’t put IceQ X on it. 6870 with IceQ is my dream card for now:)